Aberjhani's Blog: Notes of a 21st Century Digital Scribe, page 8

Conversations with the World 106: Reconciling Race & Justice in America

"A Crown & Castle for George Perry Floyd Jr. No. 1" art by Aberjhani C2020) EDITORIAL NOTE: Previous installments of the Conversations with the World Series have featured different translations of popular quotations from my books. This one includes two which many have employed over the past few years in protests against social and racial inequality.
 
The emerging consensus regarding former policeman Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Perry Floyd Jr. appears to be calling n...

Reclaiming the Magic of Poetry in a 2021 Time Such as This

(“In a Season of Blood & Poetry” art by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark LitProds ©2021) With April 2021 being the 25th anniversary of National Poetry Month, it is also the perfect time to share a shortened re-post of the article ‘Tis the Season for the Magic of Poetry Part 2: Angels and Poets. It was first published in 2014 as part of a series for my  AXS National African-American Cultural Arts column.
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When considering the recent shooting deaths of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 20-year-old Daun...

Moving Forward with Hope and Determination: Conversations with the World 105

“Considering Green on a Global Scale” art graphic by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark Literary Productions. The question of how to move forward is not one which has been weighing heavily upon citizens of the United States only since the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorism attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. It is also one which people in communities around the world continue to contemplate deeply after a year of battling the COVID-19 pandemic, and, as mutant variants of the virus have st...

5 Reasons Sympathy for Trumpsurrectionists in Short Supply

(“Freedom & Accountability” art by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark Literary Productions C2021) Members of the U.S. Congress and millions of American citizens in general are finding it very hard to think in terms of compassion when it comes to participants in the Trumpsurrection of January 6, 2021, at Capitol Hill in Washington DC, USA. Here are five painful reasons why:

1) The country was already reeling from the crippling blow dealt by COVID-19, which during the week of the Trumpsurrection re...

Rediscovering the Writings of Kahlil Gibran in the Age of COVID-19

(“Blossoms of Freedom for Kahlil” art graphic by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark Literary Productions C2021) All controversies and debates over wearing face masks to the side, medical science played a powerful role in the ability of people around the world to survive the tumultuous rollercoaster of cataclysmic events now forever known as the year 2020. Although less spectacular when it came to taking over news headlines, the comfort provided by the timeless voices of cherished literary heroes...

Here’s to a Healthier, Happier, & Hopefully COVID-Free 2021

(“Ending the Nightmare of COVID-19” art by Aberjhani for Bright Skylark Literary Productions C2020) ​Today, December 30, 2020, is the first anniversary of the first inter-agency announcements regarding what would later be identified as COVID-19. Two weeks later, on January 14, 2020, a team from BlueDot, a Canadian software company on a mission to “create a global early warning system for infectious disease,” published the following statement in the Journal of Travel Medicine:   “On 30 Dec...

A Little Social Distance Holiday Fun with Former U.S. President Barack Obama

I considered myself exercising patience and restraint when I resisted paying additional shipping fees to receive my order of Barack Obama’s bestselling book, A Promised Land, just one day after it came out on November 17, 2020. Having opted for the longer arrival time of approximately 2 weeks at the much cheaper cost of “Free Shipping,” I did not expect to receive the book until either the end of November or early December. So imagine my surprise and #gratitude when it showed up November ...

Taking a Multimedia Approach to Surviving the Year 2020 and Preparing for 2021

​A shortage of compelling topics to address via books, blog essays, podcasts, fine art, photography, electronic gaming, and other creative media has not been among the traumatizing events unleashed upon humanity in the year 2020. Painful history-altering occurrences have, however, included the following: a very stubborn and deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic crisis, further evidence of climate change in the form of murderous fires in California, riots in cities across Americ...

Compassion and the Year 2020

“Compassion crowns the soul with its truest victory.”
(from the poem “Angel of Healing: for the Living, the Dying, and the Praying” published in the book THE RIVER OF WINGED DREAMS.) 
​Descriptions of my artwork made available for sale are usually posted in the Silk-Featherbrush Artstyle blog section here at Bright Skylark. However, I’m sharing reflections on two items in this space: Sunrise in the Valley of Compassion and Flotilla of Candles. Created in original Silk-Featherbrush Artstyl...

An Encounter with Artist Paul Cezanne in Downtown Savannah

If a reporter were to ask how I ended up returning home with the 19th/20th century French painter Paul Cezanne this past weekend after traveling to downtown Savannah for a very different purpose, that would be a more-than-fair question. I actually made the trip to get some quick photos of the Lafayette Square area for a project related to my book, Greeting Flannery O’Connor at the Back Door of My Mind. The encounter with Cezanne, notwithstanding the fact he physically departed the world i...